View report page

8
them, at enhanced rents, to those persons, who, unfortunately, are saddled
with large families.
The decrease in the overcrowding is rendered all the more remarkable
from the fact that, compared with 1891, there are now 16,093 more persons
living in tenements of less than five rooms than in 1901. The actual figures
are:
1891180,330
1901 196,423
Increase 16,093

The persistent efforts of your Public Health Department during the last
nine years to prevent overcrowding have been well rewarded, as shown by the
above figures. They have been continuous, and have been successful, not so
much by serving notices to abate overcrowding as by calling on the landlords
to provide additional water-closet accommodation where the number of persons
living in a house exceeded twelve. The trouble, inconvenience and cost of
making this provision have had far more effect, both in reducing and preventing
overcrowding, especially in the smaller class of houses, than any notices to
reduce it could have had. So long as the cost and inconvenience fell on the
tenant alone, some owners did not trouble very much how their houses were
occupied, but when their pockets were touched, a reduction in the number of
occupiers followed almost as a matter of course.
Up to this poiDt the overcrowding of the Borough as a whole has only
been considered. It now, however, becomes essential to consider it more in
detail; and in order to do this it has been necessary to go through innumerable
returns, to make many calculations, and to examine maps and records which
are in the possession of the London County Council.